When Roman Abramovich landed in a private jet at Manchester Airport to watch the game that inspired him to buy a football club, the story goes that he initially thought Graeme Souness was a chauffeur.

Souness, one of the game’s greats, had been asked to escort Abramovich and two wealthy friends to Old Trafford for a Champions League tie between Manchester United and Real Madrid in early 2003, by his agent Pini Zahavi.

The Scot rolled up in a huge Mercedes with tinted windows to pick them up and dropped the three men off at the stadium, barely getting a word out of Abramovich in the passenger seat.

United won 4-3, although Brazilian Ronaldo’s hat-trick knocked them out on aggregate. Abramovich was blown away by the game and the occasion; by Zinedine Zidane and Luis Figo. Less than three months later, he bought Chelsea.

Sense of fun

But Abramovich has never been your standard multi-millionaire fan-turned-owner. He was a billionaire, for a start and admitted he bought the club only because it was for sale. This is a man who is trusted and respected by Russian president Vladimir Putin and has links to American President Donald Trump. Zhukova Abramovich, at the time Roman’s wife, attended ­Chelsea’s friendly against AC Milan with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in New Jersey in 2013.

In a rare interview after buying Chelsea in 2003, the BBC bluntly put it to Abramovich that as an outrageously rich 36-year-old, his background all sounded very dodgy. He shrugged, pointed out there are lots of young rich people in Russia and said: “We don’t live that long, so we earn it and spend it.” He said buying the club was really about having fun.

Fifteen years on, and Abramovich has changed as an owner. He knows who Souness is and, while he might have been quick to fire managers in the past, people close to the Russian say he takes a longer-term view of who manages his football club, that he has matured as an owner and is willing to give them more time.

Abramovich’s trusted aides

Marina Granovskaia, who now leads contract and transfer negotiations at Chelsea, has worked for Roman Abramovich since 1997 (Getty Images)

At Chelsea, Abramovich, 51, surrounds himself with a cabal of trusted aides. Chairman Bruce Buck has been with him since the 2003 takeover and director Marina Granovskaia, who leads ­player negotiations, started working for Abramovich’s former oil company, Sibneft, in 1997 and has been his senior advisor for around two decades. Eugene Tenenbaum, another director, was head of corporate finance for Sibneft, joined the board during the takeover and acted as interpreter in those initial interviews. Between them they have seen many Chelsea managers come and go.

A strained relationship with these key figures has taken its toll on current manager Antonio Conte – he looks paler than usual and weary – to the point that he made the rare move of calling for their public ­backing this week. Before that he laid the blame solely on the club’s board for transfers and the public criticism of transfer strategy caused tension.

Frustrated Conte

Antonio Conte looks on the brink at Chelsea after a humiliating defeat at Watford (Getty Images)

But Conte is, in his own words, a winner and he is frustrated that Chelsea have been unable to compete with Manchester City this season after winning the title by seven points last year. Since July they have spent more than £200million on transfers but split that over 10 players, whereas Conte wanted only three or four.

He has won 70 per cent of his top-flight matches, the joint-best win rate alongside Pep Guardiola of any manager in Premier League history. In a season in which City seem to be running away with the title, Chelsea are still in the top four, still in the Champions League and still in the FA Cup. All this despite a summer of spending that has not worked out.

There is concern among some who are closely connected with the club that the players are downing tools in the same manner that led to Jose Mourinho’s demise in 2015. Defender Cesar Azpilicueta denied this on Tuesday. “Are the players letting the coach down? No. I think if you see the training sessions, we all fight hard. We are the first to be disappointed with the way the last two games went,” he said.

Conte is known to impose a strict, relentless training regime on his players, which they love when they are winning titles but begin to ­despise when they are not. There was a softening after the Watford thrashing, in a sign of compromise, when Conte allowed his players an extra two days off – they were due to take Tuesday off anyway – with a rare midweek free and their next fixture not until next Monday.

What next?

Conte is listening to his players’ concerns and on Monday rested Marcos Alonso, who has been feeling frequent niggling injuries.

Some want to see the academy that Abramovich has so optimistically invested in given a chance and evidence for that approach is stacking up.

Tiemoue Bakayoko, a £40million summer signing, was abysmal on Monday night. He was booed and sworn at by his own supporters as he walked off the pitch following his 30th-minute dismissal.

Injuries aside, Nathaniel Chalobah, now at Watford, and Ruben ­Loftus-Cheek, who moved to Crystal Palace to play regularly, are examples of two academy players who could have been given a chance ahead of the 23-year-old French midfielder.

How Chelsea’s season unravelled

Summer 2017 In May Conte celebrates his first title with Chelsea but come summer it is clear there are
problems with player recruitment. Lukaku is expected to join but goes to Manchester United instead, while Matic is replaced by Bakayoko.

New season A 3-2 home defeat by Burnley on the opening day hints at problems to come but the club recovers well in the Premier League and makes progress in the ­Champions League with victory at Atletico Madrid. However Manchester City outplay Chelsea at Stamford Bridge at the end of September and there is a bad defeat by Roma a month later. Another woeful loss comes in early December at lowly West Ham.

2018 begins with Cheslea still getting results in the Premier League but they are knocked out of the Carabao Cup by Arsenal. Then comes calamity in the league when they lose to Bournemouth and Watford in successive games, ­shipping seven goals.

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